Sample Return
Posted inAway Teams & Field Reports, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Exploration Gear & Tech, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Meteorites & Asteroids, Microgravity, Missions & Hardware, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, ROVs/Submersibles/Diving, Sample Return, Status Report

Offworld Science Droids: A Review Maps Key Technologies For Small-body Sampling Robots

by Keith Cowing

Unlike planetary rovers operating on the Moon or Mars, robots working on asteroids and comets must interact with surfaces where gravity is extremely weak, terrain is highly irregular, and material […]

Posted inAway Teams & Field Reports, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Habitable Zones, Impact events, Meteorites & Asteroids, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release, Sample Return

Experimental and Numerical Modeling of Liposome Congregation in Meteorite Craters of Early Earth

by Keith Cowing

This paper provides experimental and numerical evidence supporting the occurrence of liposome congregation at the floors of meteor craters on Early Earth.

Posted inAstrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Desert Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Sample Return

NASA’s Perseverance, Curiosity Panoramas Capture Two Sides of Mars

by Keith Cowing

NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have captured two 360-degree landscapes that highlight how the missions are revealing details of the Red Planet’s formation, watery past, and potential for life (astrobiology).

Posted inAway Teams & Field Reports, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exploration Gear & Tech, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Sample Return, Status Report, Tricorders & Sensors

Tricorder Tech: DIYNAFLUOR: An Affordable DIY Plug-and-Play Nucleic Acid Fluorometer for eDNA Quantification in Resource Limited Settings

by Keith Cowing

Editor’s note: with recent speculation about the potential habitability of other worlds and understanding the processes whereby other biospheres arise and evolve, thought needs to be given to developing sensor […]

Posted inAnalog Studies, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Cryobiology, Desert Worlds, Exploration Gear & Tech, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Habitable Zones, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Sample Return, Status Report, Tricorders & Sensors

The Lipidome of a Mars Analog Poly-Extreme Community in Atacama Halite Endolith: Chemotaxonomy, Lipid Adaptation, and Implications for the Search for Extraplanetary Biosignatures

by Keith Cowing

We analyzed the lipidome of the endolithic community in halite nodules from Salar Grande in the hyperarid Atacama Desert, which is considered an analog for martian subsurface environments.

Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Comets and Asteroids, Exploration Gear & Tech, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Reports, Roadmaps, & Plans, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, ROVs/Submersibles/Diving, Sample Return, Status Report, Tricorders & Sensors

Planetary Exploration 3.0: A Roadmap for Software-Defined, Radically Adaptive Space Systems

by Keith Cowing

The surface and subsurface of worlds beyond Mars remain largely unexplored. Yet these worlds hold keys to fundamental questions in planetary science – from potentially habitable subsurface oceans on icy […]

Posted inAnalog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Away Teams & Field Reports, Cryobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Microbiology & Virology, Sample Return, Status Report

Groundwater Microbial Diversity Associated With Icelandic Basaltic Subsurface Environments

by Keith Cowing

Microbial communities in the deep basaltic aquifers of Iceland remain poorly characterized, despite their relevance for understanding subsurface biogeochemical processes, including silicate weathering.

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